


The Rain Before The Storm (The Story of Three Gravestones)

by bluemoongirl99



Series: The Teen Avengers [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aunt May centric, Gen, Peter's origin if you will, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Prequel, but i didn't like those, character death but only the ones we already know about, how aunt may and ben parker met, i know richard and mary are peter's parent's names, may's origin as well?, prequel to the teen avengers, so i chose sarah and ryan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:25:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoongirl99/pseuds/bluemoongirl99
Summary: May had never wanted to be a Mom.





	The Rain Before The Storm (The Story of Three Gravestones)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is my introduction to a universe, and big fic that I'm writing all about my brainchild of the teen avengers! Peter, with the help of his friends, and a two OCs are going to form a group of teen avengers, and it will be my love letter to all things teen angst, and emo. 
> 
> Before I get ahead of myself, this is one of the prequels. This one is Aunt May centric, and since the MCU didn't give much backstory, I decided to create it all. This will fill in some blanks, through May's perspective. I hope you guys love this as much as I love Marisa Tomei. 
> 
> This is based off of Tom Holland's Peter (*cough* the only Peter *cough*). So I hope you guys like it, I can't wait to write more. 
> 
> As always, I couldn't do this without Sage, (aka citrustmoonlight). 
> 
> Please, please, please leave a shit ton of comments, they're the only things that give me comfort in this cruel cold world.

May had never wanted to be a Mom.

While all the other girls that she was going to school with were fretting over boys and wedding dresses, May was getting her application in order to be a perfect candidate for NYU. She was going to study Journalism, with a minor in Pre-Law. She was smart, she was capable, and she wasn’t going to be put behind by a toddler who couldn’t figure out how to sleep. 

She had a plan.

She started an internship working for the _Daily Bugle_ , and had never been so excited for a first day of work. She pressed her pants, and came in with her glasses on, and her guns ablazing. 

After a week she hated it. 

Her boss was an older man who was brash, and incredibly rude. He took everyone’s ideas, and twisted them down until they were something “marketable”, with a puff of a cigar, and a nasty tweak of his mustache. May felt thankless, and like everything she had enjoyed about school, and the profession originally, was gone. She was never on the ground, and she was forced to forget about doing any important pieces about the things in the world that mattered. Instead, she was mostly doing coffee runs, or copying files. The few times she got to write, it was only in their paper’s version of _Dear Abby_ , and even then it seemed like she only was chosen to do the task because of her lack of y chromosome. 

On a cold morning in March she told her parents that she was quitting her internship, and decided to pursue law full time. She pretended to imagine how they would have reacted. Her Mother would probably be happy that she was pursuing a career with more security, and definitely more lucrative. Her father would likely be upset that his little girl was giving up on her dream, and would remind her that the road gets tough, but the tougher it is, the more relieving it is when you reach the end. But nevertheless, would support May in whatever she chose. 

Lastly, she attempted to picture how her sister would react to the news. An eleven year old wouldn’t care too much, May mused. Perhaps, Laura would get a little excited that her older sister would be a lawyer, and they would joke about watching episodes of Law and Order whenever they were home sick from school. Then, she envisioned a sixteen year old. May doubted that she would care too much either way, as long as she was happy and her student loans were able to be payed off. Possibly she would grin cheekily, with the hint of a wink, “It’s always good to have a lawyer in your back pocket, in case I ever get pulled over again.” 

May wiped her eyes hastily. It was a nice fantasy. But it didn’t matter. Her family had no advice to give her, and she was going to have to make decisions, and face the world alone. And she never did feel more alone than when she told her parents, and younger sister that she had quit her internship, and was changing her major, as she stared down their three gravestones. 

Once a week she wondered what it would have been like if she had been in the car with them that night, or worse, if she had somehow convinced them all not to go to dinner without her. But she didn’t have time for it that day, she had an exam to study for. 

=-=-=

She had only been working for Walter and Co. for a few months, when he came bustling through her door, and decided to upheel her entire existence. She had made it through law school, and inexplicably, the bar, and was happy where she was at. Walter and Co. was a small family owned firm, and the majority of her work was pro bono. It made her feel good, but better yet, it made her feel like she was doing something good with her life, and her degree. 

It was a really hot day, she remembered that much. She had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, and her staple blazer had long been tossed aside in a nearby chair occupying her office. She was just contemplating chopping all of her long, _hot_ , hair off for good when she got a knock on her door. She glanced up to see a handsome man standing in her doorway. 

“Hello, Miss De Luca, my name is Ben Parker, I was hoping that I could discuss one of your cases with you?”

She blinked slowly, then smiled. “Sure, Mr. Parker. Which case are you looking to discuss?”

Benjamin Parker, came into her life like a freight train. He was was smart, he was funny, and he was charming. He was a research advisor for one of the local colleges, and was the only guy who didn’t tell May that she was beautiful, instead, he insisted that she was intelligent, and witty, and that he hoped to see her again sometime soon. 

That night when she went home to her shitty apartment in Brooklyn, she stuffed her face with thai takeout and tried to read a book until she fell asleep. She couldn’t help though, looking around her apartment. For the first time she thought about her plan of no husband, and no kids, and felt - lonely. When she closed her eyes, the image of three gravestones stayed until she drifted into sleep. 

It only felt like a few days inbetween their first meeting, and their arrival at the courthouse, with May in a tied up white t-shirt, and high waisted jeans - with Ben in a suit jacket and jeans himself. They had only been together a year, but every moment felt like a whirlwind with him.

Ben’s sister Sarah gave her a necklace right before they went in, with a bright blue crystal charm on the end of the chain. “We’ve got the something new, and blue covered.” Her eyes gleamed, and she gave May a smile that was nothing short of mischievous as she took her hair out of its high ponytail and stretched the black hair-tie onto May’s wrist. “Now there’s something borrowed. We’ll just have to settle for something you’re wearing to be the old.” 

May opened her mouth to say thank you, but the words died in her throat when Sarah pulled her in for a tight hug. “I always wanted a sister,” she whispered. 

May had to fight back the burning in her eyes, as her chest felt like it was cracked right open. 

The ceremony was quick, and informal. Nearly being cut short by Sarah, and her husband Ryan’s, baby, Peter, being a little fussy towards the end. But May could forgive him, after all, he had a pair of some of the cutest brown eyes she had ever seen. 

But even though May had a ring on her finger, and a loving husband in her life, she still wasn’t sold on being a Mom.

… Then Sarah and Ryan got promotions, and seemed to be out of town all the time. When they asked her and Ben to babysit, she never even thought about saying no. Pretty soon, baby Peter became a regular fixture in their apartment. They moved to Queens, and May didn’t think twice about how they purposely rented one that had one extra bedroom than was needed, and didn’t question when the room got a bed in it, toys, and finally a bookshelf. 

Ben never pressed, or asked about having kids. It was an unspoken thing that May didn’t want them. 

In spite of that, some nights May found herself creeping over to Peter’s makeshift bedroom, and opening the door just a crack, to watch him in his bed. She would count his breaths, and a little part of her _wanted_ -

At that point she would close the door and make her way over to her and Ben’s bedroom. She would swallow the lump in her throat and decidedly not think about it. Besides, it was nineteen year old girls on MySpace who got baby fever, not her. She wasn’t going to let one cute kid change her. 

Then November came. 

Peter was five, and was enrolled in kindergarten, and May wasn’t naive enough to argue that he wasn’t practically living with her and Ben. He was even attending an elementary school that was right by their apartment for convenience. Ryan and Sarah never seemed to be home anymore, and May also wasn’t naive enough to argue that she didn’t secretly enjoy having Peter around. 

She had felt off for a few weeks, but had blamed it on pesky little kid germs, and the changing weather. When she woke up one morning with cramps, she didn’t think anything of it. She got up, got dressed, and made sure that Peter was ready for school. It wasn’t until they were nearly out the door did she realize that she was bleeding through her pants. She had just enough time to question how that had happened when a sharp pain hit her abdomen, and suddenly she was staring up at their ceiling, not their hallway. She knew that Peter was yelling something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was over the ringing in her ears. 

When she woke up she was in the hospital. A doctor in a pristine white coat told her that her IED had shifted sometime in the last few months, leading to an ectopic pregnancy, which had bursted. They had rushed her to surgery, but there was too much damage, and one of her tubes had to be tied. While they had her open, they noticed that her other tube was damaged, most likely had been since birth, and had gone unnoticed. 

When May asked if she was able to get pregnant, the doctor’s mouth formed a thin line and told May that adoption, and surrgogacy were always options. 

May let it sink in. She had never wanted kids. She expected to feel relieved, happy even, that some of the pressure for her to use her healthy organs to reproduce was gone. But the feeling never came. 

=-=-=

Peter was eight when it felt like the world was ending for the first time. 

Or so it felt like to May. 

The worst thing, is probably the fact that the day was completely normal. It was an average Tuesday in December, where the air was brisk. All businesses were open, the school buses were running on time, and the sky wasn’t falling down. 

May was sitting at the kitchen table helping Peter with his math homework (though he barely needed it). Ben had run out to go pick up some takeout for dinner. She was just congratulating Peter on finishing his worksheet when their phone started to ring. 

The rest of it was a blur of police stations, paperwork, Peter crying in his winter coat asking why he couldn’t just go see Uncle Ben, identifying her husband’s body in the morgue, and having to sit on the cold tiles and just cry for a bit while the moritican insisted that it was perfectly alright to react that way. 

She couldn’t get ahold of Sarah or Ryan, so she had to leave a voicemail. But how could she tell them that their brother Ben had died? She remembered when the police had shown up at her house and had told her about her parents, and Laura. She couldn’t do that to them over the phone. All she said was that it was urgent that they come home, then she hung up. 

Two days later she found out why Sarah and Ryan hadn’t been answering their phones.

A man in a tailored suit had shown up at her door while Peter was at school. She sat down on her couch, and stared at the ugly pillow by the armrest that was a puke green with horrible orange flowers all over it, the one that didn’t match anything in their house, and was only purchased because Ben loved it. She sat there and stared at the pillow as the man who introduced himself as Phil Coulson calmly told her that Ryan and Sarah worked for SHIELD, and were killed in action while on their latest mission. 

She stared at the ugly fucking pillow that Ben had loved so much as she was told gently that the entire family she had built was gone, within a week. 

“I have a few of the papers here to sign, if you’re ready.” 

She zoned back in to her world crumbling. “I’m sorry, what?” 

The man, Phil Coulson, just gave her a patient, yet comforting look. “Sarah and Ryan left you and Ben as the next of kin in regards to Peter’s guardianship. Since Ben has passed, it all goes to you Mrs. Parker. I’m not a social worker, but we like to take care of our own within SHIELD, so I have some of the paperwork here for you to sign, if you’re ready.” 

May had never wanted to be a Mom, but on that day she realized that she wasn’t the only one who had lost her entire family, Peter had too. 

With that in mind, she cleared her throat wetly. “Where do I sign?”

Later that night, when May was tucked into her bed, she heard footsteps, and glanced up to see Peter, in his ninja turtle footie pajamas, standing at the foot of it. 

It was quiet for a minute before she heard the smallest hiccup, and then he was crying. “I want my Mom!” he yelled, and May felt a little like crying herself.

“I’m sorry Peter, I’m so sorry.” She heard herself tell him. What else could she say? What else do you say to nine year old who just lost everyone, and now was under the care of his Aunt who had no idea what she was doing, and had no blood relation to him. 

She reached out to him, but he pulled away, twisting his body as far away as he could. “I don’t want you, I want my Mom!” 

Peter backed himself up until his entire back was pressed against the wall, and he shrunk down until he was sitting on the floor, sobs racking his tiny body. “I just want my Mom!”

May got out of bed slowly and made her way over to him. She crawled on the floor until she was sitting right in front of him. She truly had no idea what she was doing. She felt as if she was lost as sea. Couldn’t someone have given her a map for this? She opened her arms slightly, and it was only a second before Peter was falling into them, holding onto her for dear life. He sobbed wetly into her shoulder, and May held him. She tried to think of what she would have wanted someone to tell her sixteen year old self, but nothing seemed to fit right. So she just held on. 

Eventually they climbed into bed, and Peter refused to let go of her. May held him close to her chest, and rubbed his back. She counted his breaths until it was clear that he was asleep. Before she drifted off herself, she pressed a kiss to his forehead and said into the darkness of her bedroom. “It’s just you and me against the world, kid.” She swallowed down the tightness in the back of her throat. “It just you and me.” 

=-=-=

Peter was ten when the world fell apart for the second time. This time, the world was really falling apart. She had picked up Peter from school when the evacuations started, and she saw in the skyline what felt like something out of a sci-fi flick, not real life. Aliens were invading New York, and Stark Tower was under attack. 

She joined Ned, and his parents, with Peter in tow as they hurriedly drove up to a family member’s house in Pennsylvania. May couldn’t stop worrying, even after the ground stopped shaking beneath them. 

She had watched aliens come out of the sky with her own two eyes. How was she supposed to live in a world where something like that could just happen? 

That night when her and Peter shared a twin mattress that had been generously put on the living room floor for their stay, she said while holding him close: “It’s just you and me against the world, kid.” 

Peter smile, and squeezed her hand. “It’s just you and me.”

=-=-=

You see, May had never wanted to be a Mom. But being an Aunt May was fine with her. 

**Author's Note:**

> comment, comment, comment!
> 
> tumblr: bluemoongirl99  
> twitter: bluemoongirl99


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